– Thanks for all of your reads, comments and good support. Special thanks to Ricky Gervais.

Month: December 2015

If I had a pound for every time someone has said to me that I shouldn’t celebrate Christmas because I’m an atheist, well, I’d have a quid. If only I had that quid I could buy a lottery… oh no I can’t. Fucking lottery. Double the price and add ten extra balls, just to increase the revenues and the profits ay? It used to be called a tax on the desperate and the stupid but now it’s still something that someone has to win, so I’ve got my ticket… Doh!

We are all children of our culture and Christmas is hard to miss. The number of times I’ve tripped over boxes of Christmas decorations whilst shopping for Trick or Treat Repellent, well it numbers in the never, but I think you get my point. Christmas is a big thing, if not for normal ordinary folk, for supermarkets and corporations and all of the associated marketeers and of course for us common folk the idea of time to spend on yourself and with your family, doing what you want when you want, for a week. Just eating and drinking and seeing people you should really see more of, is very appealing.

And so I celebrate Christmas. Not because or in spite of being an atheist, but because I’m part of a society of people that is born into, and raised on, all of this holiday/festive circus.

I call it Reasonmas, because reason is my faith.

The tree goes up. It represents the phylogenetic tree of life.

The decorations, well they are just decorations. The tree of life looks pretty with a diverse mix of colours, shapes and sizes.

The star upon the tree is for Sol. Without it we are nothing. Its heat and light keep life going, not water, humanity or evolution.

Christmas cards are redundant. Why chop down a forest so millions of people can say “Merry Christmas” to each other when we live in a time of social media and mobile phones?

Presents, they are what they are. They should be symbolic. A physical way of saying to someone, ‘I remembered you at this time of family and giving’ what they are isn’t or at least shouldn’t be important. If exchanging gifts is important to you and what you receive is disappointing you need to look at yourself, no one else.

It’s all symbolic and the idea of Christmas shouldn’t be a fixed one. Let’s not forget that the faith that gave us Christmas is itself a cobbled together collection of other ideas, religions and festivals and its date is pagan not given by God. It’s a construct but a nice one.

Whether you have faith in Christianity, or anything else, I wish you a Merry Christmas. Any excuse to live, eat, drink, and share like a millionaire is a good thing. Us worker ants only have this coming week to have a time like this in a world that is built to divide us and keep us scared, paying taxes and conforming to the narrative of fear and consumption to fuel the capitalist machine.

Let’s enjoy tomorrow and the coming week like we have no worries and to Valhalla with everything else. If you have a God, may he bless you.

Thank you to Martin Tracey for your interview with me about my first solo publishing project that has just this last weekend come to fruition. As a thank you to him I wanted to introduce him and his writing to my blog followers. Enjoy.

“Dear Sir or Madam I have wrote a book, it took me years to write will you take a look…”

These were the words sang by Paul McCartney in the Beatles hit ‘Paperback Writer’.

Well it’s been 4 and a bit years to finally write my second paperback, but I’m delighted to announce exclusively to you, that ‘Mind Guerrilla’ is now available for purchase.

As it is only my second novel in double the amount of years, I hope that you will look upon ‘Mind Guerrilla’ as an example of quality and not necessarily quantity in terms of book productivity, although there is a substantial quantity of pages – 508 to be precise with in excess of 147,000 words, which perhaps goes some way to explain the length of time of creation. This also explains the cost of the paperback version of the book as it is a read that takes you to many places. In a Pulp Fiction stylie, ‘Mind Guerrilla’ uses a variety of sub-plots that weave together to finally connect and make a dramatic climax. Most novels I would say average between 70,000 and 100,000 words, so my paperback requires more paper than average – but for a book of this size it is still a very competitive price.

The kindle version is a snip at£1.99, but of course that can’t be stroked or held in the traditional way by you, or signed by yours truly 🙂

When a high-end escort is discovered murdered in her plush waterside apartment, so begins the hunt for a serial killer known as The Crucifier due to the unusual slaying and positioning of his victims.

In parallel there remains the need to locate a dangerous and elusive doomsday cult.

DCI William Chamberlain and DI Judd Stone have an acute thirst for justice on both accounts.

Stone is an ex-football hooligan turned cop. Riddled with guilt and anger, he is used to getting results – albeit somewhat unconventionally.

Chamberlain suffers from Multiple Sclerosis, but curiously, as his health deteriorates, his ability to perform acts of telekinesis increases. When faced with life or death, Chamberlain progresses from manipulating physical matter to controlling minds and sets in motion a dramatic chain of events. But why do things spiral out of control, placing an unknown high-profile target in danger?

Assistance comes from the most unlikely of sources but who is also working against the wheels of justice?

And just what is the connection between The Crucifier, the cult and the high-profile target?

With Spaghetti Western overtones, the chase from Liverpool to London and through both Birmingham UK and Alabama, finds both detectives having to confront their darkest demons in pursuit of the sweet taste of revenge.

Where can I purchase Mind Guerrilla?

Well although it will be appearing in various bookshops, the 21st century leads mainly to one place for book purchases and that is of course Amazon:

Here is the link to my Amazon author page where you can purchase Mind Guerrilla and also my debut novel ‘Beneath The Floodlight’s. Both books are aimed at an 18+ audience

In all of my many rants and chats and discussions with all of my family, friends, neighbours and colleagues about the state of the world I’ve never ever once heard anyone say with any real gusto that we need war, want it and think it’s always a solution to a problem.

So why do we keep having wars?

Why does this complex species that we call humanity continue to think the answer to some problems is dressing thousands of men; ordinary, good folk in fatigues and then handing them a gun each, tons of artillery, warplanes, missiles and grenades and then sending them out to sort out a problem that was likely caused by the masters of their generals, politicians?

Why do we now live in a time where war has no opposition to call the enemy? But there’s an enemy out their anyway, without national borders, without a strategic objective or Earthly, human reason to commit their crimes, but is willing to do so anyway, and so we’ll bomb indiscriminately from the air and kid ourselves it makes us righteous, and just, and more secure at home?

And why are the politicians who call all of this shit owned by corporate paymasters with agendas that make them all MONEY?

Our corporate paymasters – who own the infrastructure of our country, own our energy companies, our water companies, our supermarkets, our newspapers, broadcast media and the internet as well as everything in-between such as medicine patents that are too expensive for normal folk.

It’s almost redundant to protest, as I am now, as it has less than no effect. I’m talking to my fellow victims, no one who can change things reads stuff like this, or cares for the simple, singular rantings of one person enslaved by a social system that only demands that I do as I’m told within its rules – that include, me sweating, paying tax and then spending what little I have left on items that profit them and are taxed by the government so they can accumulate our wealth, cut social programmes and then conveniently find billions for war when they can’t find a way to feed the homeless, give disabled people dignity or offer treatment that is too expensive to save lives of the worker ants that we have now become.

And at this point I’m so apoplectic with rage my original point is forgotten, I just want to storm Westminster, which is stupid as it’s closed at half eleven in the evening, I guess.

But I suppose it matters not what my point is or was or may have been.

I’m just another ant, doing as he’s told and hoping I don’t step in ant powder.

But we’re all being fucked by a system that was created to make us free and has been manipulated to make us units. Low earning, tax paying, consuming, Big Mac & Fries TV watching, unquestioning units.

We’re part of the problem now, accepting the world as its given to us, when really en masse we are part of the solution.